1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a system manager for a computer system, and, more particularly, to a protocol for local data transfers between a system manager and a network operating system associated with the computer system.
2. Description of Related Art
The desire to share computer resources has motivated the development and continuing improvement of computer networks. One such computer network is generally referred to as a local area network (or "LAN"). A LAN is a system of computer printers and other peripherals into a network suitable for transmission between various ones of the linked components located in relative proximity to each other, for example in different offices in a building, or in different buildings situated near one another. Similar to a LAN is a wide area network (or "WAN"). A WAN differs from a LAN in that a telephone network is also required to link at least some of the components included in the network to the remainder of the network components.
Various types of network operating systems are in existence today. They include the NetWare system manufactured by Novell, Inc. of Provo, Utah, the VINES system manufactured by Banyan, and the LAN Manager system manufactured by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. While such network operating systems often include a network manager, the network manager included in such systems have typically relies upon the network operating system to provide data to the network manager for performing network management functions. Since network managers have been forced to rely upon data transmitted by the network, prior network managers have focussed on analyzing the health of the network and have not been particularly well suited to analyze the health of the components of the network.
Thus, of the five functional areas of network management (configuration, fault analysis, accounting, performance and security) recognized by the OSI/Network Management Forum, network managers have been best equipped to performing configuration and security management. Network managers can also provide limited fault analysis, but, in most cases, only after failure has occurred. Recently, the development of larger networks, both LAN and WAN, which include multiple printer, communication, database, and file server locations have been contemplated. This drive towards combining increasing numbers of computer components into a single network, has led to an increased demand for greater management capabilities. While, in the past, failure alerts may have been satisfactory, there is an increasing demand for information that will lead to failure whereby potential failures may be reported in sufficient time to allow for corrective action before an actual failure occurs. In addition to this increased demand for information that will lead to failure, the capability of real-time analysis of the performance of a computer system is also seen as a highly desirable management capability, particularly in the development of larger, multiple file server networks which will challenge minicomputers and mainframe for larger scale applications. Furthermore, as many of such networks will utilize a WAN configuration, the need to be able to manage the network from a remote console is of increased importance. Total reliance on local management capabilities would be a significant detriment to such systems since at least one major component of the systems would likely be remotely located with respect to the remainder of the system, thereby producing a network unable to manage the entire system from a single management console or facility.
To improve the capability of the system manager to readily exchange information with the network operating system, thereby providing improved ability of the system manager to utilize the network in management operations as well as to provide for the capability of the system manager to generate alerts for the network, a communication link between the system manager and the network operating system will be required. In order to achieve such a link, a common set of conventions (or "protocol") for communications between the two must be provided.